No Sad Tears
By Maggie the Kitten

Dream meets reality when Jenny wakes up and finds she is a guest star on her favorite British soap. Will Jenny's dream become reality?

“Hey there Buggles and Buggles of Beverly Hill’s,” came a soft familiar voice through the fog.

Jenny or Jenny Bug as her best friend Cloe called her, sleepy smiled when she heard the voice.

“I think she’s coming round.” A second familiar voice drifted to Jenny.

This one was stronger and deeper and without a doubt belonged to Cloe’s soul mate David. The two were almost always together, so it made perfect sense to Jenny that if Cloe was here, then David would be too.

The question on her mind as she flittered her eyelashes and opened her baby blues was, “Where is here?”

As her eyes found their focus she saw an Earth angel named Cloe smiling down at her, and her tall, handsome protector David standing guard behind her. These things she’d already sussed out while still in the dark, but as the light poured in, she was quite confused by the images it revealed.

David had hair, lots and lots of it in long red curls. Long sideburns traced down his cheeks and he was wearing beads and a tie dyed shirt. Cloe was a blast from the hippie past herself, as her blond hair had grown long and it was held round her forehead by a rainbow band. Her beautiful blue eyes smiled at her through round groovy glasses and Jenny could see the long flowing sleeve of one of those “mother of earth” dresses girls wore during that time.

Even though she couldn’t see them, she instinctively knew both David and Cloe had to be wearing sandals, as the outfits would be incomplete without them. Why her friends were dressed like a pair standing on the corner of Haight and Ashbury she didn’t know, so she tried to take in the bigger picture and discern where she was.

Bright and white and stainless steel glistening was all around her. Sunshine was streaming in large windows. She could see several empty beds across the room. She heard shoes walking across what had to be a tile floor. A beeping sound came at regular intervals. The bed she was lying in was fairly comfortable, but she was oh, so cold.

’Why is it they are always so stingy with blankets especially considering they keep hospital rooms so bloody cold?’ she thought as she tried to snuggle for warmth.

“Hospital room?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Yes, honey,” came confirmation as Cloe lovingly stroked Jenny’s hand. “You’re in hospital, and you’re going to be fine, although … you sure gave your mummy and daddy a good scare.”

“Mummy and Daddy!” Jenny cried as she tried to sit upright but was unable to do so without pain in her right leg.

Cloe too easily caught her and pushed her back down onto the bed with almost no effort. “Hold on there, Little Missy, not so fast! We can’t take you home until Doctor Weatherill says so.”

Jenny resumed her prone position, as if she had much choice, but her mind was up and running with more questions than she could carry. ’Why am I in the hospital?’ seemed a pretty important and logical question but it had just taken a back seat to two others. ’How can Cloe and David, dressed for bit parts on the Mod Squad become my Mummy and Daddy?’, and ’How can my favourite doctor from my favourite soap drama ‘The Royal’ be my real life physician?’

“I see the wee one is finally awake.” Another voice and presence intruded her thoughts and vision and like the first two it was all too familiar.

She didn’t need an introduction; she’d know the lovely, smiling face of Sister Bridgette anywhere. She was the most beautiful red headed Irish nun in all the Catholic faith and like Dr. Weatherill, another regular from her favourite soap.

“Sister Bridgette”, Jenny said with a wide-eyed smile as she tried to reach out and touch what had to be an illusion.

A very warm and soft and definitely real hand caught hers and held it tenderly. “Tis nice to see you awake, Jennifer. Little ones like you should sleep like angels when they’re sick, but then they need to be up and playing like little devils when they’re all better.”

She punctuated her statement by wiggling Jenny’s nose and got a little girl giggle for her efforts.
’Giggle? Did … did I just giggle like a little girl?’ Jenny said silently.

Her eyes focused for the first time on what she could see of herself. Her small hand had nearly been swallowed by the Good Sister’s. Toes too tiny to be hers wiggled on command beneath her blanket. A quick glance around the room and into the faces watching her told her either she was somehow lost in the Land of the Giants, or she was every bit as small as she sounded. She couldn’t trust her eyes or her ears.

It was time to do a quick reality round up, or at least reality as she last left it which was …

Her thoughts frantically searched for the last thing they had on file before she woke up as guest star child actress on The Royal.

Slowly, it started coming back to her. “Friday”, she thought. “Yes, it was Friday, because Mummy … errr … Cloe and I closed the office, just as we always have for the last four years.”

Reality was filling it all in fast. Jenny had been working at Joyce and Covington for over four years. She was an order processor in a computer parts warehouse. The Royal was a British soap opera about a hospital set in the 1960’s and not on her insurance listing for real life in-network facilities. Cloe and David were her co-workers, not her parents. And as sorry as she was to have to admit it, she was a forty two year old post operative transsexual woman, and nobody’s little girl.

Yes, she’d always wished she could be a real life little girl ever since she’d been masquerading as a real life little boy, and yes, once she got to know Cloe, she realized she’d found the real life mummy of her dreams. She’d written stories about those dreams, worked up enough courage to share them with Cloe, and cried in her arms when Cloe said, “I wish I could make them come true for you, my friend, but I can’t. She knew Cloe meant it, because she had been able to see the tears in Cloe’s eyes.

They were beautiful dreams from the heart of a very real little girl trapped inside the body of a tortured transsexual woman, but they were just dreams, impossible dreams that could never come true.

Yet, as Jenny looked around the room, and saw nurses in attire appropriate for the Royal’s setting, felt the cold chill of air on her backside measured against the warmth and soft touch of Cloe’s … no her mummy’s hand, and heard a child’s giggle that couldn’t be hers and yet had to be, she no longer knew what was real anymore.

With all her heart she wanted to believe this setting and the players in it were real. This was everything she’d ever wanted, everything she’d waited a lifetime to have, but could never have. It had to be a dream. Tears welled in her eyes and she trembled as she didn’t know how she would survive once she woke up and realized she’d found heaven and had left it all behind.

Cloe noted the change in her daughter’s demeanour and quickly wrapped arms around her.

“Hey … c’mon now. No sad tears … no sad tears,” she commanded as she cuddled and tried to slip in a small tickle.

Jenny’s new compact version was a perfect fit, and she slipped easily into the cuddle as much needed love and warmth washed over her. She had so longed to feel small in Cloe’s arms. Dream or no dream, this moment was too precious to waste and she clung to her like a limpet.

When she felt a hand gently brush her back. She didn’t have to be able to see who it belonged to. She knew it was “Daddy” letting her know he loved his little girl too.

This was all too much. Jenny was on emotional overload. It was getting to the point she didn’t need know how this was possible. She just wanted to hang on to her Mummy and hope it never ended. Not that she needed anything else to shatter reality, as it was pretty well shot, but another player entered the mix, and like the other three, she was all too familiar.

“Well … it certainly seems like we’re feeling better this morning?” The voice of a British woman interrupted the moment.

Jenny’s first thought was, ‘It can’t possibly be … but then again of course, it has to be.’

She raised her head from Cloe’s shoulder and then wiped the tears from her eyes. A lovely brunette Doctor with beautiful brown eyes holding a clip board was smiling at her. In almost a reflex action, Jenny smiled and reached for her, her own voice rising in pure child’s joy. “Doctor Jill! Doctor Jill!”

Jenny’s mummy, the player formerly known as Cloe, gave way to the doctor. Dr. Jill Weatherill, Jenny’s favourite doctor from the soap opera and in her new reality, took possession of the precious parcel, giving her a hug before easing her back onto the bed.

“Yes, we are definitely feeling better this morning,” she added with that laugh that Jenny had loved for over five seasons.

“She was a bit disoriented when she woke up, Doctor,” David informed her.

“But she’s feeling bright eyed and bushy-tailed now, aren’t you my Buglette?” the beautiful blond mum said to her “happy-to-be-daughter.”

Jenny had about a thousand things she wanted to say and ask at that moment, but when she looked into her mummy’s eyes, only one thing came out. “I’m all better now.”

And considering she had the body she always wanted and belonged to parents she always wanted, no truer words could she have spoken.

Dr. Weatherill noted the novice doctor’s ‘diagnosis’, but still insisted on an examination of her own. She took Jenny’s wrist gently and smiled at her reassuringly while taking her pulse. She then examined her eyes which she pronounced clear and the most beautiful shade of blue which made Jenny blush and giggle like the little girl she’d become.

Jenny wiggled and giggled again as the stethoscope on her bare flat chest was just as cold as it always appeared to be in every episode she’d watched. The doctor listened intently and then turned to face Jenny’s parents.

At first Jenny was a bit miffed Doctor Jill didn’t address her, the patient, but then another part of the new reality sunk in as all conversation went over and around her. She was just a little girl, and aside from being asked if something hurt or being told she’d get a lolly if she didn’t cry when she got a shot, she had to be a silent spectator in it all. Mummy and Daddy were responsible for her. The doctors talked to them, and they made the decisions for her. That was part of being a kid, even if she was a kid who remembered when she hadn’t been one.

Jenny sat back and listened, wondering if they knew she understood more than a kid her age, whatever that exactly was. Regardless, she would gladly accept her new position and the privileges and restrictions that went with it.

“There are no signs of concussion, no broken bones and all her vitals seem normal for a child her age.”

Jenny pouted silently, ’And what age is that?’

Dr. Weatherill continued with her rundown. “I think the worst of it is her right knee.”

’Oh no!’ Jenny shuddered. ’Not my right knee! It was messed up the first time round. I don’t want to be Lady Limpsalot at my Prom.’

“How bad is it?” asked the concerned mum.

The doctor, without as much as an “excuse me please”, pulled back Jenny’s blanket to expose spindly little legs. The right one had a dressing on the knee.

Finally Doctor Jill addressed her patient. “Jenny … we’ve got to show mum and dad your boo boo, and it might hurt a little when I remove the plaster. Can you be my brave princess? I’ll see Nurse Stella gives you a lolly if you don’t cry.”

Then she leaned forward and whispered in Jenny’s ear, “And I’ll see Nurse Stella gives you one even if you do, okay then?”

Jenny nodded and smiled bravely, which was a whole lot easier to do with her Mum holding her hand.

“Hiya Buglette!” came yet another friendly voice. Jenny turned to see the keeper of the lollies, Nurse Stella Davenport herself.

Jenny responded with a weak and unenthusiastic, “Hi Stella” as her eyes stayed focused on her knee and the action going on there.

Jenny never saw Doctor Jill give Stella a look, but Stella did, and she knew that silent bit of communication well. Immediately she set to take Jenny’s mind off her knee and the pain that was about to come. “Buglette? Do you remember when we talked last night?”

Jenny sighed, ’Questions about the past? Which past? The one where I was a middle aged soap slinging warehouse worker, or the one that goes with this present that I know almost nothing about?’

Stella noted her silence, but was undaunted as she leaned down closer to Jenny. “Oh that’s all right, princess. You were pretty tired. I don’t reckon you remember much of anything, but I remember what you told me.”

That got Jenny’s attention. It was a chance to add a few pieces to the puzzle.

“You told me about your cat named Cow, and how much you miss her.”

Cow was Cloe’s cat. Jenny had gotten to know her during her visits to Cloe’s house. She adored the Reubenesque feline, and was glad that she’d been brought along to the new universe Jenny had awakened in.

“And while I couldn’t smuggle her in past Matron, I was able to do the next best thing.”

Jenny’s vision was filled with a fluffy stuffed lion. Her eyes went wide and her smile wider and she took him from Stella and pulled him into her arms.

“Ohhhhhh…Stella he’s purrrrrrrfect!”

Jenny cradled her new baby lovingly, and barely even noticed the sting as Dr. Weatherill removed the plaster.

Cloe turned her attention away from her daughter’s knee just long enough to thank the kind angel of mercy, and then prompted her daughter to do the same.

“Thank you Stella,” Jenny smiled,

“You’re welcome, Buglette,” Nurse Davenport replied with a kiss on Jenny’s forehead.

“Sir Lionheart, that’s what I always called him, was just lying round my room all alone and waiting for a little girl to protect. When I talked to you last night, I just knew you were the one. You’ll give him a good home I’m sure.”

Jenny rocked her new baby as Stella was summoned away by Matron and another blast from the past came back to her. ‘Sir Lionheart? Wait a minute; I had a stuffie named Sir Lionheart. He lived with me in that dreadful little flat down the street from work. Wow! This just gets weirder as it goes.’

“Her knee will heal properly won’t it doctor?” asked David, the concerned dad.

“Yes, of course it will, but it’s going to take some time. I’ll set up some physical therapy for her and she’ll have to wear a brace for a few weeks, but she’ll be right as rain in no time …”

Doctor Jill looked down at Jenny’s chart and then turned her attentions toward her pint-sized patient. “You’re going to have to be a little lady of leisure for a few weeks, but … I promise you’ll be jumping rope and playing hop scotch and be totally recovered in time for your celebration on the 8th of August.”

Jenny stared blankly at the doctor and then looked from parent to parent. “What’s the 8th of August?”

Cloe giggled, “Why it’s your birthday, Buglette. You’re going to be seven. I can’t believe you’ve forgotten it.”

David sighed, “I’ll say. You sure haven’t let us forget it. Maybe Doctor Weatherill needs to examine your head after all.”

He smiled at his daughter and winked to let her know he was only teasing her as normal, but Jenny no longer knew what was normal. In the life she had before, although it was beginning to seem more like a dream, her birthday was the 24th of October, and when that date rolled around again she would be 43. She certainly liked her new birthday and upcoming age much better than the other one, but she was troubled with the date. Everything else in this dream come true seemed to have some tie to her past life, but the 8th of August had no meaning to her. There was nothing significant about that date. It was just the eighth day of the eighth month.

“Eight!” she shouted out loud as the penny dropped.

Cloe looked at her daughter and raised an eyebrow. “No … you’ll be seven. Quit trying to grow up so fast, my Buglette.”

Jenny said nothing. She hid behind Sir Lionheart, glad she’d got away with one and glad she’d figured out the latest riddle. Eight was her lucky number. A fortune teller had told her that once long ago, although up until now she’d never seen any sign of it. Now, as she looked at the calendar on the wall, it was obvious that eight was truly great. Today’s date was the 19th of June, 1965. Doing a little math that was beyond most six year olds, she deduced that in order to turn 7 on the 8th of August, she had to have been born in 1958. That made her official birth date: 8-8 of 58. She couldn’t get much luckier than that.

“Oh, and another thing Miss Jenny.” Dr. Jill waggled a finger in her face. “You be more careful on that bicycle of yours. The next time you decide to play queen of the road with the milk lorry, you might not be so careful.”

Dr. Weatherill punctuated her warning with a smile to let Jenny know it was light hearted, but her words touched something deep and serious within Jenny that set bells ringing in both lives she belonged to.

“I remember now!” Jenny cried out.

And she did. Her other life and the events leading into this new one had been fuzzy and getting more difficult to recall with each passing moment, but now it was all back and crystal clear. Yes, she’d been on her bicycle just as her favourite fantasy physician had said, but there wasn’t any near collision with a milk lorry.

“It was Friday night and … and I was leaving work …” Jenny started softly and slowly.

Cloe and David made quick eye contact and Dr. Weatherill gave her little patient a puzzled stare.

“What? Friday night? I think you’re a bit confused Jenny. You had your nasty little spill on Saturday afternoon, and what’s all this about work?”

Jenny fought the urge to forget and put all her efforts into focusing on memories from the life before.

“It … it was Friday night. I know it was and … and I was leaving work.”

“It was Saturday afternoon. You were leaving the back garden and you did so without my permission,” Cloe tried to gently correct her confused daughter.

A light shined in Jenny’s eyes and she squinted to avoid it.

“Perhaps she does have a concussion.” Dr. Weatherill examined her pupils. “That would explain her confusion.”

“I’m not confused!” Jenny pushed out her lip and folded her small arms against her chest.

“Jenny,” came a stern warning from the normally gentle giant she knew in this life as Daddy.

Jenny relaxed her posture immediately and offered a quick apology to Dr. Weatherill.

“I’m sorry, Doctor Jill.”

The good doctor smiled her acceptance and added a wink just to let Jenny know she was still her favourite patient.

“Cloe,” Jenny said in barely more than a whisper as another link in the memory chain came into focus.

She turned to her mummy and pointed her finger. “Cloe … you were there!”

“And when did you start calling your mum by her first name?” David gave his daughter another stern glare, but this time it didn’t have the same bite.

Jenny reached out and grabbed Cloe’s hand. “You saw me leave work. I … I … was waving to you and … and I was riding my bike.”

Cloe shook her head. “Honey, you weren’t working anywhere. You were playing in the garden and then you slipped out the gate to ride your bicycle on the sidewalk. You never waved at me, and I never saw you or I would have brought you back in and spanked your royal bum, little lady.”

Jenny closed her eyes and the scene that mummy … no Cloe …had just painted for her replayed in her mind. She could see it clearly now. She remembered having to stack the bricks by the gate so she could reach the latch and make her escape. She had only wanted to ride her bike and it was too hard to do it on the grass in the garden. Emily, her best friend next door, was out front riding her bike. It wasn’t fair that Daddy said she couldn’t play outside unless Mummy was watching. She wasn’t going to get hurt. She was a big girl.”

Jenny’s eyes opened suddenly. She really was a big girl. She was six foot tall! The old reality chased away the new one Cloe had given her. Once again it was Friday night. She was riding out of the parking lot from work. She so hated saying goodbye to her best friend. Normally she would sit there and watch Cloe until her black Mazda was out of sight, but not this time. Cloe had shooed her away and told her it was too cold for her to hang around. Of course it was too cold. It was early March. She shuddered. She hated the cold. Why are hospitals so cold? She wanted Mummy to hold her and make her warm but she couldn’t give into that. She had to keep thinking, keep remembering. She couldn’t let anything distract her, even the never ending beeping of that hospital monitor.

Tears … yes tears were in her eyes when she rode off. She so wanted to go home with Cloe. She couldn’t just look away. If she looked away, then Mummy would be gone for the whole weekend. She had to keep watching her, draining the last few seconds to help sustain her for the terrible two days ahead. She was smiling and waving and … and not watching where she was going. The truck seemed to come out of nowhere. How could it have gotten there so fast? She heard the horn before she saw it and when she finally saw it, it was too late.”

“Earth to Buglette,” teased Cloe as she added a playful poke to be sure she was making contact.

Jenny returned to the new reality just in time to escape sure death in the other. She lunged for the safest, warmest place in any reality, her mummy’s arms. Cloe caught the flying bundle and cuddled her as tears came in sobs.

“It’s gonna hit me. It’s gonna hit me. I don’t wanna die!” she cried.

Cloe rocked her frightened child. “Here … here now. Shhh … It’s going to be alright. Mummy’s got you. She won’t let anything hurt you.”

Dr. Weatherill turned to David who was standing by looking concerned but also helpless.

“It’s just shock from the accident, poor thing. It’s like waking up from a really bad dream. She’s frightened and confused, but she’ll be alright. She just needs a little rest and a lot of love.”

“Is that a prescription?” David asked with that sexy grin Cloe so loved.

Dr. Weatherill was not immune to his charms and blushed ever so slightly when she replied. “It’s my favourite prescription, especially for little ones. It works loads better than any pill I can push.”

Cloe cradled her daughter and continued to comfort her. “You don’t have to be scared any more. It’s all over now. Daddy and I are going to take you home. You do want to go home, don’t you?”

Jenny looked up, tears still falling freely from her eyes, her mind a jumble of thoughts, but one broke through. “I do … I do wanna go home, Mummy.”

She did want to go home. She couldn’t wait to get home. She loved being home. It was warm and safe there. A cold chill went through her. She so hated being cold. Home … home … she wanted to go home more than anything. At home she could run and play and she hardly ever got in trouble as long as she stayed in the garden. She loved her room. It was so pretty. It was a room fit for a princess and when she rode on her Daddy’s shoulders she truly felt like royalty. Food … she was hungry. When she got home Mummy would fix her something special, maybe grilled cheese! Mummy always fixed her something special when she came back from seeing the doctor, especially if she’d been really good and she’d been pretty good, except …except for sneaking out the garden gate.

“Mummy … it’s all my fault.” Jenny was wracked with guilt and it came out mixed with tears.
“I shoulda never left the garden.”

Cloe brushed the locks from Jenny’s face. “It’s okay, baby. It’s all over now. Mummy’s not mad. Let’s just forget all about it and go home.”

Cloe gave her little one a wink and tempted her. “I’ll fix you a grilled cheese sandwich and you can help. Okay? Now no more talk about the accident or milk lorries.”

Jenny wanted that sandwich and that reassurance and she reached for it, but the big truck returned and once again she was in harms way. It was like a giant green 18 wheel whale about to swallow her whole. The silver grill on the front was like teeth ready to chew her up. It was on her and there was no time to get out of the way. She turned back to Cloe. She wanted Cloe. She … she saw her. She called to her.

“Cloe!” she screamed. It was the last thing she remembered from the past reality and this time she made every head in the ward turn.

“What’s wrong?” Cloe said with wide frightened eyes. David, Dr. Weatherill and Nurse Davenport were all quickly at Jenny’s bedside.

Jenny shook her head. “It wasn’t a milk lorry! It wasn’t a milk lorry! It was a semi-truck and I was at work and … and … you were there, Cloe.”

Cloe dropped her head and David laid a comforting hand on his beloved’s shoulder.

“I’m not a little girl. You’re not my parents and this …” Jenny waved her arms around. “All of this can’t be real. Oh my dear G_d would I give anything for it to be real, but … it … it can’t be. It just can’t be.”

Cloe sighed sadly. “You’re right, Jenny Bug. You weren’t playing in the garden. You didn’t sneak out the gate and you weren’t almost run over by the milk lorry … errr … truck.”

Jenny’s mouth fell open. Gone was the dream and along with it, Cloe’s beautiful British accent.

David gave a relieved sigh. “I really hated talking with that accent.”

Jenny looked to Cloe for more answers and received them. “And as you have probably figured out … this is not 1965 and this is not your favourite British soap come to life.”

Jenny turned to the smiling face of her favourite physician. “Then … then you’re not really Dr. Weatherill?”

Good Dr. Jill gave her a wink. “Oh I’m Dr. Jill Weatherill alright, just as Nurse Stella and Sister Bridgette are who they are and this grand old hospital is the Royal, but none of us are real. We’re just characters on a telly show.”

The good doctor leaned over and gave Jenny a very real feeling kiss on her forehead.

“Sorry Cloe.” She said with a sad smile. “I really thought we had her for a moment, but she’s one very smart little girl, maybe too smart for her own good.”

Jenny stared in disbelief as Nurse Stella blew her a kiss and then the characters of the Royal just disappeared, leaving only Cloe and David at Jenny’s bedside and Jenny with more questions that Cloe tried to answer.

Cloe took Jenny’s hand in hers. “Everything about Friday night happened just the way you remembered. I sent you off with your usual weekend hug. I told you to be careful, which like most kids, you totally ignored. You got all weepy on me and wobbled your bike through the gates. I saw you waving at me and I returned the wave. It was then I saw the truck come round the corner and I knew you didn’t. You were still watching me through those tear filled eyes, instead of paying attention to where you were going or more aptly what was coming.”

Jenny sat bolt upright. “Then I was right. It was a big green whale … errr … semi that came out of nowhere!”

Cloe nodded silently.

“And I didn’t have time to get out of the way which means …”The cold reality of what that meant sunk in and suddenly Jenny had an explanation to the beautiful fantasy she was living.

“Oh my G_d. I didn’t have time to get out of the way and that means I hit the truck or well … it hit me but either way … I end up dead, and if I’m dead … then … then this must be heaven?”

Jenny looked at her still small hand being held in Cloe’s and the two people she’d rather have as parents above all others and then smiled. “Oh yeah … this has to be heaven.”

Cloe shook her head. “No my Buglette. You’re not dead ,and this is not heaven.”

“But … but the semi-truck. I … I didn’t have time get my bike out of the way. It had to hit me and there’s no way I could have survived.”

“That’s right Bug. If the truck would’ve hit you, it would’ve killed you, but … think back. Think back to the last thing … the very last thing you remember.”

Jenny closed her eyes and drifted back. She was on her bicycle again. Tears were in her eyes. She could hardly see Cloe in the parking lot. She could hardly see anything and then suddenly she was face to face with 40,000 pounds of steel and chrome. She couldn’t get out of the way. She turned back to Cloe. She called for her and then … and then. Her eyes went wide.

“Someone lifted me off my bike. I … I felt like arms just picked me up and …pulled me aside.”

Jenny looked to David who had taken a seat on the edge of her bed. David shook his head to let her know the brave knight hadn’t rescued her from sure death. His gentle nod in Cloe’s direction let Jenny know that the queen had saved the damsel in distress.

“You … you saved me? But … how? You were forty … more like fifty yards away. How could you have saved me?”

Cloe shrugged her shoulders. “Honestly, I don’t know how I did it. I think it’s some sort of gift I have.”

Jenny’s eyes smiled. “You mean like magic or witchcraft?”

“Hold on there, Little Missy. Don’t let that imagination of yours get going. I may have brought the Royal to life for you, but I’m no real life spellslinger like Samantha from Bewitched, or Prue Halliwell from Charmed. I’m a totally mortal girl who has a gift, but until Friday night, I never realized just how powerful that gift was.”

Jenny shook her head. “I don’t understand Mummy … errr … Cloe”.

A smile turned at Cloe’s lip that said she would answer to either name. “And I don’t understand either,” she confessed. I never really have. All I can tell you is that when I was a little girl, not much older than you are. I discovered that I could move things with my mind.”

“You mean like tele … tele …kneez …”

“Telekinesis”, David gently corrected and Cloe confirmed.

“Now they were just little things like pebbles or leaves or pencils, and I couldn’t always do it. It was really kind of funny. If I sat and concentrated on something, most of the time I couldn’t move it an inch, but if I was just walking along and suddenly saw a falling leaf, sometimes I could call for it and it would come to me, or if I got frustrated trying to write something, the paper would shoot off my desk and the pencil would break without any pressure from me. Like I said, it’s hardly prime time witchcraft.”

Jenny slowly put the puzzle together. “You mean you used your mind … your gift … to lift me off my bike like I was a hundred and forty pound falling leaf?”

Cloe shrugged her shoulders. “Pretty much. I mean, when I saw that truck heading for you and I knew you couldn’t get out of the way … I just reached for you. I had to protect you. It was well … almost instinct.”

“Maternal instinct”, David said in a whisper to Jenny that was just loud enough for Cloe to catch.

Jenny smiled wide and Cloe gave David “the look”, but it was only in play as she knew in her heart he was right.

“Was it really maternal instinct? Honest?” Jenny fished for the answer she so longed to hear.

Cloe smiled and gave it to her, “I guess so.”

“Yeah!” Jenny squealed and bounced in her bed. Both Cloe and David rolled their eyes.

“I can’t think of any other explanation,” Cloe continued. “You always known I’ve loved you, Bug, and that means all of you, even that little girl who had always been an innie with no chance of being an outie. She … you … have always touched the maternal instinct in me. There were times when I left you in that parking lot that it was all I could do to keep from turning back round and opening the car door and telling you to get your bony little bum in the seat.”

Tears started welling in Jenny’s eyes.

“Hey … hey … hey! You know the rules. No sad tears … no sad tears!” Cloe tried to coax a smile from her.

Jenny Bug sniffled back tears of joy and gave her best brave smile.

Cloe shook her head and wiped a tear from Jenny’s cheek. “Bug … if I could have given you your dream I would have the first time you shared it with me, and even though I think you’re crazy for wanting to be my daughter, I’d of adopted you right on the spot, but I couldn’t. There was nothing I could do.”

“Until Friday night,” David quickly added.

“Yes …until Friday night and then well …it was like my power was a hundred, no, thousands of times greater than it had ever been. It was like those stories where mothers lift cars off their children after an accident. I saw someone, someone I loved like a daughter in harm’s way and … well … I just had to protect you. Honestly … I don’t know how I really did it. I’m just glad I could.”

“Me too”, sang Jenny as she reached out to the woman she loved as her mom. Cloe immediately pulled her in for a cuddle.

Jenny Bug was truly a hug monster and the last thing she wanted to do was let go, but she still had questions that needed answering.

“I understand you saved me even if I’m not exactly sure how … but … but … what’s all this?”

“All this?” Cloe gave her little one a puzzled look.

“You know … “Jenny Bug waved her arms around the room. “All this!”

“Well ….” she started in her best Samantha from Bewitched. “That’s another little gift I have but it’s far less mystical than the first one. It’s really just the power of suggestion. It was something my Grandmother passed on to me. When I was a little girl, she used to tell me these amazing stories before bedtime and I swear to you, those stories seemed so real that I would drift off to sleep believing I’d really been to the places she told me of. I’d wake up the next morning still thinking I’d been through the Looking Glass and any other place she took me.”

“But it was just a fantasy, right?”

Cloe smiled as the memories of those days so long ago were still just as fresh and vivid. “Yes Bug. It was just a fantasy, an illusion, but … when that fantasy is woven by a master story teller who knows exactly what a sleepy little girl wants to hear and see, well … you might be surprised by just how real it all seems. I’ve used this little trick on all three of my daughters when they were little. Emily used to wake up and check her bed for sea weed after I took her swimming under the sea with the Little Mermaid.”

Jenny looked round the empty hospital ward which was an exact replica of the one she had watched every Saturday night for the last five years. They say seeing is believing, and what she saw she certainly had believed right down to Sister Bridgette’s Irish accent and the cold in the room that had her shivering and wishing for another blanket. The only thing missing was the 60’s British pop music they played in the background.

“Oh I’m surprised all right,” Jenny admitted as she half expected Matron to come through the ward doors at any time.

“This is all so real it’s … its unreal … if that makes any sense.”

The exchange of smiles between David and Cloe said they understood.

“But I’m still really confused I mean … am I sleeping right now? And if I am sleeping, where am I sleeping? And why? Why did you create all this? I really think it’s neat. You know how much I love The Royal, but why … why do all this?”

“All good questions my Buglette, now let’s see if we,” she gave her co-conspirator a wink, “can give you a few good answers.”

Jenny noticed the wink and turned toward David for the first answer. David squirmed a bit uncomfortably and latched onto the easiest question first. “You’re not exactly sleeping. It’s more like you’re resting.”

Jenny waited for further clarification, and when she received none she turned back to the wise oracle.

“David’s right. You aren’t exactly sleeping. You’re sort of resting, and as to where you’re resting … well I think I’ll skip over that one and deal with the last question first. Why did I do it? Why did I recreate one of your favourite television programs for you to wake up in? Well … there are a couple of reasons. One, I wanted something to distract you from the trauma of your brush with death. As we both know, you tend to be a bit of a drama princess, and I thought waking up in one of your favourite fantasies would take your mind off the horrible reality you’d just endured.”

“And …,” David gently prompted his beloved.

“And …” Cloe shot him half a look before turning back to Jenny, “I was hoping to distract you enough, that if you had any recollection of how I actually rescued you … it would become so mingled with the fantasy world of the Royal, that when you finally awoke from your resting and returned to reality, you wouldn’t know what had been a dream and what had been real. Unfortunately … reality slipped in and refused to let the Royal I built stand.”

Cloe sighed and then shot David a cool glance. “Of course if I’d gone with my first fantasy choice, like I wanted to, I think you would have been so entranced by it that I could have pulled it off, but somebody refused to play along.”

“Your first choice?” Jenny’s eyes sparkled. “What was your first choice?”

David ignored the little one in the middle. “I didn’t refuse. I just didn’t want to play that part.”

“What part?” Jenny cried, but again was ignored.

“You could’ve had the other part if you wanted to, but you’d had to do a lot more background research or Jenny wouldn’t have been fooled. As it was, I was up for the better part of three days watching Royal episodes to be sure I got it right, and we were just background players in this. You would have had a mountain of videos and books to go over before you could have pulled off being the doctor.”

“Doctor? Doctor who?” Jenny finally shouted loud enough to make herself heard.

“Cloe looked down and smiled, “Exactly!”

“What?”

“No Bug, you had it right the first time round. Not what, but who … Doctor Who.”

“Ohhhhhh…,” the penny finally dropped for Jenny. “You were really going to make the Doctor come alive for me, with the Tardis and K-9, and Daleks and everything?”

“If I could’ve of … Of course I don’t know what half those things you just mentioned are. Like I said, I would have had to do a crash course on this Doctor Who of yours, but I’d of done my best to make it real for you. And if someone would have played along, I still think it would have worked.”

David folded his arms and looked like a petulant little boy. “I’m not playing the Doctor’s companion. I know enough about the show to know that most of his companion’s were girls.”

“And I told you that you could have been a male companion. This Doctor had male companions, just like there were female Doctors, right Bug?”

Jenny truly felt like a tiny rose between two thorns. Meekly she agreed with Cloe that she was right on both accounts.

David pouted. “Hey I agreed to do this whole Royal thing didn’t I? I did the British accent and I even wore these ridiculous hippie clothes.” David pulled at the colourful sleeve of his very 60’s attire which made both Cloe and Jenny stifle giggles...

“And you know I’d do almost anything for you, and even for you.” His gaze dropped down to Jenny level. “But I have limits and well … I’m not being anyone’s male companion! It’s … it’s … just well … it sounds gay!”

Of course the look on David’s face and the pose he’d unknowingly set seemed anything but macho masculine at the moment and neither girl could stifle the giggles any longer. Once the laughter cut loose, David knew he had been bested, and had no choice but to join along and laugh at him self. He had to admit. It was funny.

Once the laughter subsided, a little of the fog lifted for Jenny. “I think I understand now. Yeah … I see how you didn’t want me to freak out when I remembered the accident, and it almost worked. For a little bit, I really thought I was at the Royal and … and that you two were my parents and I was so happy, but … you also didn’t really want me to remember how you saved me, because you were worried I might tell someone. I mean, that is a pretty amazing gift, and if your secret got out, you’d have people hounding you all the time over it. Well … I just want you to know. I promise you I won’t tell anyone. Honest I won’t.”

Cloe smiled and ruffled Jenny Bug’s curly reddish locks. “I know you won’t, my Buglette, but even if you did … do you really think anyone’s going to believe you?”

Jenny thought for a moment and shook her head. Even in the real world where she was an adult, no one would believe such a story if she shared it. They might not be able to explain how Jenny had been swept away at the last second from being a front bumper sticker on a Peterbilt, but they certainly wouldn’t believe it was some magical gift that Cloe had, bolstered by her maternal instinct for a forty two year old post operative transsexual.

Tears welled in Jenny’s eyes, as reality started to sink in.

David offered a comforting arm around the sad little one. “Hey, what’s with the waterworks?”

“I’m really … really happy that you and Mum … errr … Cloe did all this for me.”

“Yes I can see,” Cloe gave her little drama princess a wry smile. “But you might want to try and hold down the laughter. You’re liable to wake up the stiffs in the morgue.”

Cloe went fishing for a smile, but couldn’t get a nibble from the sniffling little girl.

“You … you saved my life. Nobody else could’ve done what you did and then you made magic for me.” Jenny waved her arm at the empty ward room plucked from British television.

“I’m glad I was there, Jenny and I’m glad my gift came through for you when we both needed it most, but as for all of this, I already told you, it isn’t magic. It’s just the power of suggestion mixed with the mind of a sleepy little girl who still believes in fairy tales”

“Well … it’s magic to me!” A small smile peeked out from the small girl.

Cloe looked lovingly at the little one snuggled close to her. “Yeah Bug, for a little girl like you, I guess it really is magic.”

Cloe had given Jenny the greatest compliment she could ever receive. She’d called her a little girl, even though she knew that back in the real world, Jenny was nearly forty years past that. The tear tap started going again.

Cloe reached for a Kleenex on the table by Jenny’s bed. “Oh for heaven’s, sakes. You’re worse than all of my girls put together.”

Jenny took the Kleenex and tried to slow down the flood, but the gates were open now.

“I’m sorry … but … but … I wish all of … of this didn’t have to end, cause I … I don’t wanna go back. I know I gotta go back but … but … bein here with both of you … and bein like this … is … is everything I always wanted … and I don’t want to go back. I’m sorry … I just wish it was this way for … for real.”

“You have to go home, Jenny,” David tried to be a gentle voice of reason and reality. “You can’t stay here. Not only is it not real but … no matter how much I love you, I am NOT going to be your groovy hippie daddy with a British accent.”

“Your flower power father,” Cloe gently teased, “is right. You can’t stay here, but … if you really want to come back and visit, I’m sure we can sneak you past the Matron on another sleepy night.”

Jenny nodded, but the tears continued flow freely.

Cloe reached for more Kleenex. “Gee girl. I knew you really liked this soap opera, but I didn’t think you were that attached to it.”

Jenny shook her head and then blew her nose. “It’s not the Royal. It’s … it’s ….me … this me … this me that’s a little girl, and best of all … she’s your little girl! Here I’m your daughter and … and I belong to you and you love me and I get to go home. I get to go home with you and be part of a real family. But … but this isn’t real, and when I’m back in the real world … everything will be gone, and … and … I won’t be your little girl no more. I’ll be old and all by myself again and … and Friday will come and I’ll have to … to sit on my bicycle and watch you go home and I won’t get to go cause … cause …it won’t be my home and my family. I won’t belong no more. I won’t be your daughter."

Jenny latched onto Cloe, desperately wanting to cling to her and this beautiful fantasy. “Mummy please …I don’t want it to be like that any more. I don’t want me to be like that no more. The only thing I ever wanted was to be your little girl and now … now that I am … I don’t want it to go away. Please! Please! I don’t want it to go away”.

Cloe held the sobbing child in her arms and lovingly rocked her. Her voice was soft and calming. “C’mon now. Remember Mummy’s rule: No sad tears …”

Jenny continued to cry and hang on for dear life.

“Okay, little octopus”, she said hoping to stem the tide of tears and she pried herself away from Jenny’s clutches. “We were saving the best surprise for last, but your little drama queen gene went into overdrive, so I guess we better tell you the news or you’re going to make England an underwater kingdom.”

Jenny was still choking tears and staying as close to Cloe as she could get but she was listening.

“As you know, the Royal Free Hospital, the characters on the show, my hip chick sandals, and David’s groovy sideburns …” She gave her love a wink. “Are all fantasy creations, but the three of us are quite real.”

Jenny nodded as sniffled back tears. “I … I know we are real people, and when I wake up from resting, you will still sorta look the same and … and David,” she turned to face her funky father, “You will kinda look the same too, but I won’t. I won’t have this body you gave me and then I won’t have the life that goes with it and then … and then.”

“Oh no not again!” David took Bug and matters into his own hands. “This is your real body now. This is not a fantasy. I promise you get to keep it when you’re wide awake and back to the 21st century,” David looked down at the beads hanging from his neck and quickly added, “which won’t be soon enough for me.”

Jenny Bug’s mouth fell open. Cloe giggled as Bug reminded her of a baby bird, ready and waiting for Mummy to bring home take away worm.

Cloe answered the question; her little girl couldn’t find the power of speech to ask, “Yes, what David said is true. This is your real body, a keeper body. It’s real from that wiry mop and freckled nose to that sore knee, sorry about that, and cute little toes.”

David gave his beloved a painful grimace. “Cute little toes?”

Cloe shrugged her shoulders, “Hey, I thought it was a nice touch. You know … a little poetry.”

“Very little”, David rolled his eyes.

“I’m real?” came a soft voice, barely audible over the current battle of jabs and jibes.

When it came the second time it was a declarative statement and quite a bit louder.
I’m real!”

Cloe smiled and nodded her affirmation.

“I’m real! … I’m really real!” Jenny began poking and pinching and wiggling and bouncing.

“I’m real and you’re real, “she pointed at David for confirmation and got the same silent nod Cloe had given earlier, “and you’re real,” she turned back to Cloe.

“Yes Bug, I’m real … everyone here is real. I think we have that established, okay?” She gently teased.

“This is my body now and I get to keep it, right?”

“Yes Bug.”

“And I don’t have to give it back when I wake up?”

“No Bug,” she felt her patience being taxed. “I promise we won’t take you to the return desk at Macy’s, and besides, I don’t have a receipt for you anyway.”

“Huh?” Jenny Bug’s baby blues stared up helplessly at Cloe.

“Buglette,” she slowed it down and made eye contact. “Read Mummy’s lips. This is your real, honest to good, for better or for worse, genuine, no one can take it away from you, absolutely authentic, in all worlds real or fantasy, and guaranteed to last until the onset of puberty, little girl body you always wanted. Now do you get it?”

Bug smiled back at her, “I’m real!”

“By George I believe she’s got it!” David gave it his best Henry Higgins.

The freshly minted daughter pounced into her mummy’s arms and showed her appreciation in kisses and hugs.

“Oh … and yes, the body does come with a new address, two parents and assorted siblings,” Cloe couldn’t resist as she weathered the attack. “Your own cage, merciless teasing by your sisters and … whatever mental and physical abuse your father and I can dole out until you are 18 is also cheerfully provided free of charge.”

David laughed and shook his head. He loved everything about Cloe and her wry sense of humour was among his favourites. Cloe’s ‘A’ material however was lost on the little girl in her arms who had already heard everything she needed to hear. She was in her mummy’s arms, she was real and she was going home. What else really mattered? Nothing else mattered to the little girl, who had everything she ever wanted, but one questioned teased her and finally curiosity got the better of the kitten.

“How?”

“How what?” Cloe gave her little one a puzzled look
l
“How did I get this body, this real body?” Jenny looked first to Cloe and then to David who made it quite clear he was not the responsible party. “Hey, I’m just the innocent bystander here. Go ask your mom.”

Jenny turned back to Cloe who made some quip about how often David uses that escape clause, before collecting her thoughts to answer the question she knew would come sooner or later.

“Bug, when you ask me about where babies come from or what’s going to happen to your body when your first period comes, I’ll have stacks of videos and books ready to answer almost any question you can put to me, but … trying to answer how the pint-sized version of you got here, well … that’s not so easy. However, I’ll tell you what happened and what I think happened, okay?”

Bug nodded and settled in comfortably.

Cloe let out a sigh and after getting an encouraging smile from David, began. “When I saw you about to be hit by the truck, the only thought in my mind was getting someone I love very much out of harm’s way. You know I do love you. And yes, part of that love I feel for you has always been for that little girl who is so much a part of you. And yes, she pulls on my maternal instinct and has ever since the night I read the first Kitten tale you shared with me. I’ve told you many times I have often treated you the same as I would any of my girls, and I’ve also told you that if I had the power to give you what you want, I would ask you twice and if you still wanted it, I would have given it to you.”

Jenny Bug hugged her new mummy. “I know that. You’ve told me those things lots of times and I believed them with all my heart, even if I was always asking you to tell me again.”

“Well … what I’m about to tell you might not be easy to believe but I promise you it’s the truth. As I said, when I saw you about to be hit by the truck, the only thought in my mind was getting someone I love very much out of harm’s way. Now it all happened so fast, but in that split second I felt as though I reached out and grabbed you, and when I say ‘you’ I mean that part of you that I loved that was never defined by the body that housed it.”

Jenny’s eyes went wide. “You mean you pulled the little girl right out my skin?”

Cloe chuckled, “Evidently so, although I didn’t realize it straight off. All I saw was a shadow fly through the air and then the truck hit your bike. I didn’t even know for sure that I had got you away safe until I ran across the railroad tracks and found you there in the grass with no signs of the lanky lady I’d called friend for over four years.”

“And I looked like I do now?”

“Pretty much … except you were out cold, and that knee of yours was twisted up pretty bad. Oh, I’m sorry about that, I guess your Momma doesn’t know her own strength when it comes to the kid toss”

Jenny smiled to let her know she didn’t mind the less than perfect landing.

“Were you sure it was really me? I mean I do look a little different now?” Jenny added with a giggle.

Cloe rolled her eyes. “Oh I knew it was you straight away. Considering how many of your stories I’ve read, I knew your description by heart.”

“And the fact you were swimming in a gray dress that used to be your work shirt, probably gave her a pretty good clue too,” David couldn’t resist adding.

“So what happened then?” Jenny bounced excitedly.

“Well … the first thing I did was make sure you were still breathing, which you were and then I had to think fast because the truck driver that had made a bumper sticker out of Lady Jane was heading my way in a trot. He was as shook up as I was, and scared to death he’d killed you. I picked you up and woke you to show him that you were still in the land of the living. Fortunately you didn’t say anything that I couldn’t talk my way out of, and that calmed him down a little. Turns out he was a rookie, and the last thing he needed was to have to report an accident, which happened to work out quite well for me, because the last thing I wanted to do was explain who you were to the police and the hospital. They would have had me locked up in the mental ward and you in social services quicker than you could say, ‘committed’.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Hang on, Missy. As I said, he wasn’t looking for trouble and neither was I, so we mutually agreed that no one needed to call insurance agencies, police or an ambulance. We’d both just walk away and pretend it never happened, although he felt so bad about trashing Lady Jane that he insisted on giving me $50 dollars. Rather than argue, I just accepted it, promised him I’d put it in your college fund and tried to get us both out of there while our luck was holding.”

Jenny shook her head and sighed. “I don’t remember none of that. Not a single thing.”

“Probably shock,” David also known as Doctor Daddy, diagnosed. “The stress your body went through to change like that had to be incredible. I can’t even imagine the amount of emotional and mental stress. It’s probably a blessing you slept through most of it and have no memories. But I am curious … What’s the first thing you remember after the accident?”

Jenny thought for a moment, “I … I guess waking up here. It does kinda seem like maybe I was dreaming, but I don’t remember that so good. Voices and noises and … and …being too cold.”

Jenny shivered as she huddled closer to Cloe for warmth. “And I’m still too cold and I still hear the beeping.”

Cloe gave her daughter a concerned look and checked her forehead. “You’re not fevered, but your hands are cold. And as for the beeping … I haven’t a clue. It could be background noise from the real world.”

Cloe reached over to the next bed and pulled the blanket off it. “Here, snuggle like a Buggle under this. That should warm you up.”

“Then you don’t remember Cloe bringing you to my place after the accident?” David continued to try and probe Jenny’s memory.

Jenny shook her head as she searched for warmth and then turned to Cloe “How come you didn’t take me home?”

“I take it you mean to Chez Nicholas?”

Jenny confirmed with a nod.

“Well … your father’s place was closer; I hadn’t had time to come up with a kid friendly truth to tell the girls about their new little sister. I didn’t think they would buy that Papa John’s was giving away a free kid with every family pizza deal. And … while I know you had just gone through a very stressful experience and would need me when you woke up, I’d gone through my half of it too, and I needed David while I was awake and still barely sane.”

Cloe loving smiled at her brave knight who had always been there and this time was no exception. He’d been a calming voice on her cell as she drove to his place and tried to explain the unexplainable, unbelievable event that had just happened. He was there when she pulled into his parking lot. He gave her what she needed most when she arrived: that smile of his that said everything would be alright, the look in his eyes that he believed the unbelievable without question and then the feel of his strong arms around her. Once he’d steadied the fair princess, he scooped up the little one and carried her in while Cloe continued to get him up to speed.

“Is … is that where I’m resting at now for real? At your place Da… errr … David?”

David gave that knee weakening smile of his to Jenny who blushed as any princess of any age would do. It was his silent way of giving her permission to call him what she felt for him in her heart.”

“Yes … in the real world, you are currently camped out on my bed and Dale is standing guard, asleep at his post as usual. Your mother and I are at your bedside and everyone else is in the living room, probably destroying my game system.”

Jenny sat up straight. “Who’s everyone else?”

Cloe fielded that one. “David’s twins and my girls except for Emily who is at Chez Nicholas fixing up a bedroom for her new little sister.”

“You mean Emily knows about me?” Jenny’s eyes went wide as she shivered but this time it wasn’t from the cold.

“Well yeah! We weren’t planning on keeping you in my bedroom until you were old enough to send off to college. Your sisters need to know they have fresh meat in the house, and I’d like my bed back, thank you very much.”

David gave Cloe a sexy look that let her know just how much he wanted his bed back and who he wanted to share it with.

“Sisters … I got sisters!” Jenny said half in disbelief and half in pure joy.

“That you do,” Cloe confirmed. “My four girls and David’s twins. Poor David, he’s just drowning in a sea of estrogens.”

David whimpered like the “Dog” he was nicknamed after, while Jenny continued to take it all in. “I hope they like me. I’m going to be the best sister to them ever.”

Cloe shook her head and looked at her beloved. “How long do you think that Susie Sunshine routine is going to last with your twins?”

“They’ll eat her alive before the weekend’s over. And what about your fearsome foursome?”

Cloe mulled it over a moment. “Well … she’ll probably do alright with Emily and Tina. They're a pair of pushovers, but Erin’s going to think Christmas has come early. She’s gonna feed Jenny so much crap and have her taking the blame for everything but leaving the toilet seat up. And Samantha … well, Jenny’s knocking her off the princess pedestal since she’s the youngest. I doubt that will set well with her. It could get ugly.”

Jenny’s baby blues started to tear up. “But … but I wanted them to love me. I’m going to love them.”

Cloe handed her a Kleenex. “Two things … One, tears will get you nowhere with anyone save for your daddy. I’m immune to them, and among your enemy sisterhood it will only be a sign of weakness. And two … of course they will love you, you’re their sister, but of course they will aggravate you and tease you and fight with you and drive you crazy, because … they are your sisters.”

Jenny looked a bit confused and Cloe tried to take the rose coloured veil from her eyes. “Jenny I’ve tried to tell you so many times before during our long evening talks when you’d get all flutterpated about how beautiful and perfect life at Chez Nicholas is. Yes, there really are some special moments that are borderline Hallmark, but 98% of time it’s nothing like the Gilmore Girls or Eight is Enough. It’s a bunch of girls fighting over the bathroom mirror, and me hollering at them to get up, or to go to bed, or to wash a dish, or to clear a path through their bedroom so it’s not a fire hazard. It’s … it’s not that special. It’s just real everyday life, with no magic, no sugar coatings and no guaranteed happy endings. You’ll be a girl in a girl’s body which I know is going to make your life better, but aside from that, all bets are off. You’re just going to be another tax deduction scrambling for the last piece of pizza.”

“She right, Bug,” David added confirmation. “I’ve read a few of your stories, and well I thought they were pretty good. They made me laugh, they made me think and I felt honoured that you’d want me for a father. You have a good imagination. I hope that’s something you will carry into this life, but your mom’s right. When you wake up and get out there into the real world of a seven year old, you’re going to get those rose coloured shades of yours knocked off the first time you hit the playground, and there won’t be anything Cloe or I can do to make it easier for you. We have to treat you the same, and that’s the true reality.”

Jenny stared at the window and watched faux 60’s sunshine stream through it. “I kinda think I understand. I mean, I know being a kid is hard, even when you’re not transgender and you have the best parents in the whole world. I know sometimes I did make something beautiful out of something that was just plain old everyday to you and your girls, but it was beautiful to me, because I never had it everyday. With me it feels like being an orphan who’s had her nose pushed against the glass for forty years, watching other kids live the life she could only dream of. And now you’re bringing me inside where it’s warm and safe and giving me a chance to be a part. Doesn’t it make sense that the simplest little things that are almost meaningless to you would be almost magic to me?

Cloe’s eyes met with David’s as they weighed their daughter’s words. Cloe spoke for both of them. “Yeah … I suppose you’re entitled to a little protection under the “new kid in the house” rule. I’ll try to get the girls to take it easy on you, but you’ll have to get this whole wide-eyed Pollyanna routine of yours out of your system within two weeks. After that I can’t be responsible for damages.”

“That’s the same deal I have to offer you with my twins.” David stood with Cloe in a united parental front. “Look … you say in your stories you just want to be a real kid. Well … like it or not you got your wish. Expect your sisters to treat you like a real little sister. Expect us to treat you like our seven year old daughter, and we expect you to act like the selfish, thankless brat who takes all these beautiful moments you’re so fond of and eats them up without a second thought and complains when she doesn’t get more. That’s real life, a kid’s real life, your real life.”

Jenny looked from parent to parent. “But ... am I really real? I mean, I know I look real, right?”

Cloe produced a hand mirror from Jenny’s nightstand and she got her first real look at the new real her. “Wow …,” she gasped.

“Yeah, that was what I said the first time I saw you, only I added a few more colorful metaphors I’d better not hear coming from your mouth,” Cloe added with a grin.

The reddish blond hair, the blue eyes, the freckles, the small … everything. Yes, Jenny knew she had the real body, and she’d always had the real spirit, but what about the mind? Immediately she began searching the data base for old memory.

“I … still remember me. You know … the me from before. I … I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. In a way I don’t want to forget the good times we shared, and if I forget all the bad times, I’m afraid maybe I won’t appreciate how lucky I am to be a kid, but I don’t want it to get in the way, either.”

Jenny felt another cold chill that penetrated two layers of blanket. “Am I going to always remember my life before or am I going to forget it?”

Cloe wrapped her arm around the shivering child. “I don’t know Bug. See … your momma doesn’t always have the answers.”

“And neither does Dad”, David quickly added.

“Honey, I have no idea how this is going to go. I don’t think anything like this has ever happened outside of one of your stories before. Maybe you will always remember your past life. Maybe you will remember only parts of it, or maybe it will all slowly fade away like a dream,” Cloe waved her hand at the room, “sort of like the Royal. But my woman’s intuition says it might go just like you wrote it in one of those stories. Maybe the mind will fall into line with the body and the soul. Maybe you won’t completely forget the past, but it will retreat to some place out of the way that won’t interfere with the present. At least for your sake, Bug, I hope so. You’ve waited so long to be an ungrateful brat who can’t possibly appreciate all we are about to do for you or how fortunate you are. We don’t want you to miss one bit of it.”

“Me neither!” Jenny cried as she surprised her father by surprise pouncing into his arms. David looked helplessly at Cloe, then sighed as he gathered his new daughter in for a cuddle.

“Wrapped,” Cloe whispered with a smirk and then lifted her pinkie finger to show David exactly what Jenny had him wrapped around.

David gave her his hang dog look as he knew she was right.

Jenny smiled and cuddled, loving the feeling of finally being a true lap kitten. Cloe hated to break up the moment, but knowing the little hug monster would coax loads more, she finally did so reluctantly. “It’s almost time to get up. Your sisters are waiting to meet you. We’ve kept them out of the room, telling them you were tired from the long trip, but if we don’t let them in soon, they’ll break down the door.”

“Long trip?” Jenny raised her head off her father’s shoulder. “What long trip?”

Cloe slipped in close to her beloved and her daughter. “Your father and I had to come up with some kind of realistic lie about your conception. I couldn’t very well tell them I found you along the railroad tracks, any more than I could tell them I picked you out of the cabbage patch.”

“Your mom’s right. We had to come up with something convincing not only for the family, but for the authorities as well. It had to be legal or at least close, and with all the proper mountains of paper work.”

“And where’s the best place to find mountains of paperwork, always in triplicate?” Cloe asked with a smile.

Jenny was clueless but David and Cloe answered in unison, “The military!”

“I’ve been drafted?” Jenny cried wide eyed.

“No silly,” Cloe laughed. “As you know, your father is a former military man and he still has connections. He called in a few favours to get help arranging a very discreet overseas adoption.”

“And as you know,” David countered, “your mother’s father was also military, and she coaxed him into helping things along and not asking too many questions he really didn’t want to know the answers to.”

“Bottom line,” and Cloe wiggled hers on the bed playfully to make Jenny giggle and David drool, “you are our adopted daughter from the United Kingdom, and we have a mountain of paperwork to prove it.”

“I get to be English!” Jenny squealed.

David laughed. “We thought you’d like that, Bug. You always were the biggest anglophile in the company.”

“Thank you Daddy! … Thank you Mummy!” Jenny Bug laid on the hugs and the baby British accent.

Cloe accepted the hug graciously. “Now, Nervous Nellie, before you ask it, I already know your next question. ‘What am I going to say when someone asks me about my life in the U.K. before you adopted me?’

Jenny nodded at her mind reading mother.

“Already got that covered. We’ve told everyone that you had a very traumatic time of it, which sadly isn’t a lie, and that the least you are asked about it, the better it is for you.”

“And for us!” David added with a smile.

“Your father and I will try to steal just enough from Oliver Twist and Tiny Tim to give them an almost believable story of a poor English orphan we had to rescue. I’m pretty sure I can use the fact that Joyce and Covington has an office in the UK to our advantage. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look adorable, and we should be home free.”

“Home,” Jenny sighed dreamily. “Home … I get to go home. I … I get to belong and nobody can take it away from me. Home … I get to lie on the floor and color. Home … I’ll be safe and no more monsters!”

“Monsters?” David raised an eyebrow.

Cloe put a finger to her lips and shook her head. David knew that meant she’d explain it later, although he had some idea of what Jenny meant by monsters. To Jenny, who’d ached for an impossible dream that was a birth given reality to most girls, her monsters were the adult sized version of the ones that usually hid under most kid’s beds.

David was a man, and a man glad to be a man, especially when he held his soul mate in his arms. The thought of what it would be like growing up in the body of the opposite gender was beyond his comprehension, beyond anyone’s comprehension who hadn’t been unjustly imprisoned, but he knew it had to be a living hell at times. And even though neither he nor Cloe had wanted to take on another child, considering it was Jenny, they gladly made the one exception.

“And you love me”, Jenny was still on a role as she smiled at her daddy. “And you love me”, she gave her mom the same set of baby teeth. “And … and I love you and it’s a forever love and … and nobody can take it away. And … and I got sisters … lots of sisters, and they’re gonna love me and I’m not gonna be scared cause I won’t be afraid of nothing cause you’ll be here and … and I’m going to make you so proud you just wait and see! Home … finally I get to go home!”

David reached out and took Jenny firmly by the shoulder, which stopped her gushing. Saying nothing, he slowly began examining her shoulder, feeling his way along until he reached her neck and then started working his way down her back.

“What on Earth are you looking for?” Cloe had to ask.

“The off switch”, David said totally deadpan. “I’ve got to find the off switch before I die of a sugar overdose.”

Jenny’s mouth fell open, not knowing if her father was serious, and Cloe nearly fell off the bed from laughing so hard.

“You have twin girls”, she said as she held her side from laughing too hard. “You know there is no off switch, but a good double dose of Nyquil will execute a complete shut down of her system for about six to eight hours.”

This time David nearly busted a gut as Jenny looked a little nervous and swallowed hard.

Cloe pulled her into a cuddle. “Oh don’t worry. We’re just teasing. We take good care of all our little tax deductions. Your father and I are experienced parents.”

Cloe gave David a wink. “And what that means is we know just how to beat you without leaving those pesky bruises that child protective services are always watching for.”

Jenny’s big baby blues searched Cloe’s and when she saw them smiling back at her, she knew is was just Mom being Mom.

“I love you too, Mummy,” she said as she squeezed the hug a little tighter.

David watched the scene for a moment and then looked toward the wall clock.

Cloe nodded knowingly. “C’mon pumpkin, reality waits,” she gently eased her little one back down on her bed.

“I just can’t wait to see what it’s going to be like and … and what I’m going to grow up to be like,” Jenny sighed dreamily.

“So you want a sneak peek into the future huh?” Cloe teased.

“Can I Mummy? Can I? Just a little one, pleeeeeze.”

“Well …” Cloe drawled out like her favourite television witch Samantha.

“Oh thank you Mummy,” Jenny bounced back into her mother’s arms. “You’re the best mummy ever, and I promise you I won’t ask for anything else ever again.”

David seized the opportunity to get even, and whispered, “Wrapped.” He held up the same pinkie she had shown him earlier to remove any doubt of her similar fate.

Cloe gave him a little tongue for his efforts, which only teased him and made him think about how nice it would be to get Bug out of his bed and Cloe back in it.

“Okay … just a quickie now. We really are running on borrowed time.” Cloe closed her eyes to concentrate.

“Even though biologically you’re not our child, although looking at that hair and those freckles, I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a DNA match, I do have a feeling that you’re going to carry some of our personality traits mixed with a little of your own and perhaps some of your interests.”

When she opened her eyes she was smiling. “Of course, I should have thought of this straight away. With David’s natural athletic ability, my perfectionism, both our competitiveness, and your love of sports, how could it be anything else.”

Without another word of explanation, Cloe waved her hands at the ward room from the Royal and Jenny watched in amazement as it disappeared and she found herself standing in grass and staring down at a pair of small cleats.

“Get your head up and your butt down, girl!” David’s stern voice scolded her.

Jenny immediately did as she was told and found a baseball on a collision course with her chest. She put up her right hand for protection and blessedly found it was gloved. The ball ricocheted off to the right and bounced toward third base.

“I’m … I’m playing short stop,” Jenny said as she looked down to see she was wearing shorts and a team jersey that proclaimed she was a member of the Peaches.

She turned her head back and forth and could feel the pony tail dancing from the hole in back of her ball cap.

“Bug …c’mon and get with it. You’re playing like a girl,” David baited his daughter, hoping he’d get a reaction.

Jenny glared at him from under cap, assumed a defensive position and gave him what he was looking for. “C’mon Dog Head,” she teased him with his nickname, “Hit me one with something on it!”

He smiled mission accomplished and then hit a hard bouncer to her left. Jenny was cat quick and snared the ball on a tough in between hop. She fired it back to her dad with a little pepper on it and a smug smile.

David noted the smile and took up the challenge. “Okay, Missy … I’m going to run this one out. Let’s see what you got.”

This time he put a little muscle behind it and hit a screamer to the right. Jenny took two steps, then dove. She hit the dirt hard but came up with the ball cleanly. She quickly got to her feet and pivoted to throw to first base.

David who thought he’d surely hit it past her, was trotting half speed to first when he glanced to his left expecting to see a dejected daughter. Needless to say, she was anything but down and he would certainly have been out.

“You would so be toast, Dad”, she boasted as she bounced the ball in her left hand.

David laughed and shook his head. His little girl was as cocky on the field as he was, and without all the testosterone, but just like her father, she could back it up. She was the best short stop in the girl’s league and could outplay most of the boys in the other.

Jenny soft tossed the ball back to David and readied herself for another shot, but Dad was done and he waved his girl in. “C’mon that’s enough for the day. It’s starting to get dark. We better get home before all of your mom’s enchiladas are gone.”

Jenny jogged in and cleanly caught the Gatorade David tossed her. Jenny stared at it in disbelief. “You’re sharing your Gatorade?”

David put an arm around his little diamond darling. “Yeah … I guess I’m getting soft in my old age, but don’t get any ideas about swimming in the neighbor’s pool, or leaving the yard without permission.”

Jenny snuggled next to the only man in her heart, at least for now. “Sure Dad … whatever you say.”

The pair walked off the field and then suddenly Jenny found herself back in her bed at the Royal with David and Cloe at her side.

Jenny looked down at her right hand, half expecting to find the baseball mitt that had been there just second ago. “Wow … that was awesome Mum!”

“I’m glad you liked it, Bug.”

“I would of beat the throw to first if it had been a real game situation,” David pouted under his breath.

Cloe rolled her eyes at her other little one. “I’m sure you would of have, dear.”

Jenny pulled on Cloe’s sleeve. “Will it really be like that? Will me and … and Dad play ball and share Gatorade?”

Cloe thought for a moment. “Well … you need to remember that what I showed you was an illusion, at best only shadows of things that could be, and not necessarily will be. Now do I think you could be a terror on the ball diamond and the apple of your Daddy’s eye? Sure! But you’re father sharing his Gatorade? Don’t bet your cleats on it.”

David glared at the other apple of his eye. “Really?”

Both mother and daughter giggled at the expense of their brave knight.

Cloe loved seeing Jenny smile and laugh. Over the last two years, she’d seen so little of either coming from her friend; now as her daughter, she hoped it would be a regular occurrence.

“It’s about that time, ladies,” David gently prompted his girls.

Cloe nodded as she took Jenny’s hand in hers. “Your dad’s right. We need to get back home. Time to say goodbye to England and The Royal.”

“Wait … wait a minute Mummy.” Jenny Bug pleaded as she cuddled close to Cloe. “I want to really say goodbye to the Royal. Can’t you bring everybody back so I can say goodbye to them? You know … like if I was a real patient and … and they were discharging me? Please … please Mummy. I’ll be really fast, and I won’t ask for nothing else. I promise I won’t.”

Cloe looked into Jenny’s Bug pleading eyes and then turned to David with a smile. He was waiting for her with one of his own. If there was any doubt about Jenny making the adjustment to crumb snatcher, that look and her plea removed it. She was all kid, and perhaps in all the ways that truly matter, she always had been. This new body only made the child more visible to those who couldn’t see past the old one.

Cloe looked back to the little girl who was desperately trying to work up a crocodile tear or two to improve her chance of success. She could hardly keep a straight face. She knew she should probably bring down the curtain on this performance, but decided to be generous this time and give Jenny a temporary stay.

“Okay,” she tried to give her best stern warning without spoiling it by giggling. “One quick round of goodbye’s. No holding hugs, and no long speeches. Is that clear?”

Jenny Bug pounced on her Mummy, an occurrence that was soon to become routine. “Thank you … thank you, Mummy. I promise.”

David chuckled. “I can see how much fun it’s going to be trying to get her to bed at night.”

Cloe declined comment, knowing the only thing she could have done was agree with him. With a wave of her hand, the cast of the Royal suddenly reappeared.

Dr. Weatherill held a thermometer in her hand and peered at it through dark rimmed glasses. “Seems despite all her complaints about being cold, her temperature, like everything else, appears to be normal. I think it’s safe to take her home.”

The lovely lady doctor turned her attention to her pint-sized patient. “Now Miss Bug … as much as we’ve all enjoyed having you stay with us, we’d prefer the next time you stop by to be an injury free visit. Sooo … will you promise Dr. Jill to be more careful when you cycle?”

Jenny freckle faced grinned and raised her left hand, “I promise.”

Dr. Weatherill didn’t comment that Jenny had raised the wrong hand. She knew the promise, while sincere and heartfelt, probably had little chance of being kept. She could tell this little girl was one of those perpetual skinned knees and bruised bum types. She’d be back again, and probably before the summer was over.

Jenny took a long last look around the ward room while half listening to Dr. Jill giving her parents instructions about taking care of her knee. She knew it was an illusion, but it was all so real, right down to the crisp white sheets, the cold room and that stupid beeping that was back again. She decided not to mention the cold or the beeping again. She was sure both would be gone as soon as she returned to the real world.

“Jenny Bug, your taxi is here.”

Jenny turned to see Nurse Stella with an old wooden wheel chair waiting for her. A pink blanket had been draped over the seat.

“C’mon, princess we’re going to roll you out of here in style.”

Jenny tossed her blankets aside and started to swing her legs over the edge of the bed, but her left knee was sore, and she winced in pain.

“Whoa, Nellie,” Cloe brought her to a halt. “First, we have to get some clothes on you.”

Jenny Bug blushed as she realized she’d almost given a show to all in attendance and sank back down on her bed. Cloe giggled, then produced a lovely little summer dress with loads of flowers and colors that fit in perfectly with the fashion statement her parents were making. Nurse Stella tamed a few of Bug’s curls with a brush, while Cloe added a daisy to her hair from the vase of flowers at Bug’s bedside .

Once she was dressed and groomed, it was the Brave Knight to the rescue, as David quickly slid an arm under her legs and lifted her easily. She wrapped her arms around her father’s neck and snuggled up close. She felt so small in his arms and in reality she was, but she felt safe and amazingly warm for the first time. She liked the feeling and was looking forward to having it again as many times as he and his back would allow.

David deposited Jenny Bug into the chair and Nurse Stella took the handles and swung her round.

“Wait!” Jenny cried. “I almost forgot Sir Lionheart.”

Cloe reached down and collected her daughter’s other brave protector of royal heritage and handed him to her.

“Thank you, Mummy”, Jenny said very politely with a smile that would melt butter.

Cloe sighed and wondered just how much trouble that smile would get her daughter into and out of in her life to come.

With Nurse Stella at the wheel, Sir Lionheart as her throne mate, and her parents flanking her, Jenny Bug made her farewell lap round the Royal. One by one she gave goodbye hugs to all her favourites.

Dr. Weatherill gave her star patient one last hug before going off to finish her rounds. Nurse Marian and Nurse Catherine were just going off duty, but they stayed long enough to share a few hugs and giggles with Jenny. The Matron, ever professional and ever so busy, even took time to chat with Jenny and her parents. She nearly knocked the little girl out of her chair when she gave her a hug as she quietly slipped her a lolly for the ride home.

Dr. Jeff Goodwin, who had popped in to have a look on her a few times while Dr. Cloe was otherwise occupied, gave her a kiss on the forehead that put colour in her cheeks, and added to her collection of lollies.

Alan the Porter, who had chatted with her a bit and smuggled in that transistor radio so she could hear the Beatles the night before, gave her a wave and wink as they passed by. Even crusty old Doctor Rose managed to put down his pipe and give her a peck on the cheek.

When they rounded the corner that would take them to see Lizzie Hopkirk, the receptionist and the last stop on the final hug tour, Nurse Stella and Jenny very nearly ran over Sister Bridgette. Fortunately, the Sister was very nimble and sidestepped the runaway wheel chair.

Sister Bridgette winked at David and Cloe before she gave the two speed racers a stern glare. “Here now … this is a hospital zone, not that Indiana 500 race. I’ve half a mind to call a traffic warden and see you both get a ticket.”

For a moment, both Nurse Stella and Jenny Bug looked like they want to sink into the tile floors of the Royal, but then the good Sister gave the game away with a smile and everyone followed suit.

When Jenny noticed her parents getting a good laugh at her expense, she decided to get even. Very innocently she called to David. “Daddy, when are you going to marry Mummy and make an honest woman out of her?”

This time it was David and Cloe who looked as though they wished they could fade right into the corridor walls. Sister Bridgette turned positively crimson. Jenny continued her polished innocent look and Nurse Stella had all she could do to suppress a laugh, and was obviously losing the battle.

Once David regrouped, he leaned down to Bug level, and whispered just loud enough for all to hear. “I’ve been giving that loads of thought, Bug, and I definitely intend to do that, but I think that’s something you need not concern yourself with. What you may wish to consider is who you are going to be left with whilst your Mummy and I are on honeymoon. I really think you need to give that some thought. The possibilities could be quite … shall we say … interesting?”

Jenny Bug melted further into the wheelchair. Daddy had got the best of this battle, but future engagements were guaranteed for the future.

After Sister Bridgette said her goodbyes, Cloe slipped her hand into David’s and smiled lovingly at him. “So … when are you really going to make an honest woman out of me?”

“Really?” David played the wounded party. “Can’t a guy get to pick the time and place to propose to the woman he loves?”

Cloe laid her head on her beloved’s shoulder and nuzzled his neck. “Well of course you can, baby, it’s totally your decision, and just as soon as Bug and I make it for you, we’ll let you know.”

David dropped his head and sighed. He never really had a chance going up against Cloe, but now that it was two against one, it looked happily hopeless.

“Well hello, Jenny Bug and don’t you look the smasher!” lovely Lizzie Hopkirk, the perky receptionist, complimented her with a smile.

Jenny Bug beamed with the praise her favourite groovy gal heaped on her. “Thank you Lizzie. Mummy and Nurse Stella fixed my hair with the flower.”

“Oh yes love, you’re quite the hip chick now. I suppose all the young lads will be wanting to chat you up. Guess I better not bring my boyfriend around you if I want to keep him.” Lizzie gave David and Cloe a wink to let them know it was all a good natured tease.

“Don’t worry Lizzie,” Jenny solemnly promised. “I’m only interested in brave knights and that’s my Daddy and Sir Lionheart …” She presented Sir Lionheart for Lizzie’s inspection and to ease her worries.

“Ohhhhhh … yes, he’s quite the handsome lion, all right. I guess the rest of the lads are safe.”

“At least for now”, Lizzie added with a whisper and wink in David and Cloe’s direction.

As a final parting gift, and to no one’s surprise, Lizzie presented Jenny with a bag full of lollies. Jenny giggled and thanked her friend as she padded her stash. Nurse Stella reluctantly relinquished control of the wheel chair to David, but not without giving Jenny Bug a hug, a kiss, and eliciting a promise to take good care of Sir Lionheart. Jenny cheerfully gave all three.

David lifted Jenny Bug out of the chair as she looked through the glass doors at the parking lot and seaside city of Elsinby. He gently placed her on his hip, ever mindful of the knee that was tender in both worlds.

“Time to go home,” Cloe softly informed her as she adjusted the flower in Jenny’s hair.

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Jenny cried as she looked pleadingly to her Mummy “I just membered something.”

Cloe eyed her suspiciously. She knew stalling tactics when she saw them, but for the moment she gave her leave. “And what’s that Bug?”

“What’s happens to the other me in the real world that don’t exist no more. You know … the one who was your co-worker?”

Cloe and David made quick eye contact. David silently volunteered to take the point.

“Jenny,” he said with a sigh as he looked into the eyes of the little girl in his arms. “We honestly don’t know. It’s well … kind of like your old self disappeared into thin air when Cloe pulled your spirit out.”

David thought about what he’d just said, “Actually … that’s exactly what happened, but what happens to your old life now … well … it’s kind of hard to say.”

Cloe moved into her line of vision. “The company security cameras are only going to show you leaving the lot on your bicycle. Thankfully, everything else that transpired took place outside their range, or … oh boy Lucy, would we have some splanin’ to do.”

David shifted the light weight on his hip. “When you don’t show up for work on Monday, Personnel will list you as a ‘no call-no show’. Three consecutive days of that and you will be terminated. I bet most people will think you found something else better and decided not to give notice. At least that’s the story we’re going to circulate when they ask either of us.”

Cloe gently squeezed Jenny’s hand. “And as sad as it is to say that you had no contact with your family and no friends outside work, it’s actually quite fortunate. It means that nobody is going to look for you, and considering the sleight of hand we’ve used to make you legal, the less questions asked, the better.”

Jenny looked from parent to parent. “What about my flat and all my stuff in it?”

Cloe smiled devilishly as she reached into her pocketbook, eventually producing a key. “Remember? You gave me a spare when you moved into the place. We can go there and get anything you really want.”

David pulled on the sleeve of Jenny’s summer dress and smiled, “I don’t think we need to worry about fetching any of your old clothes.”

“As I said, we can go there, but honestly … I’d rather not draw any unwanted attention. However, if there is really something you have to have?”

Jenny gave Cloe’s question proper thought. She considered the sum total of her meager possessions from the life she was leaving and then looked at her parents who represented everything this new life held.

She shook her head confidently, “No Mummy I don’t need nothing there, cause I got everything I need right here.” She punctuated that statement by snuggling closer to her father.

“Peachy keen, jelly bean!” Cloe quipped with a bright smile. “So now … without any further ado, Close your eyes my Buglette, and let us rejoin reality and the not so groovy 21st century.”

“Wait Mummy wait!” Bug made the long goodbye a little longer.

Cloe gave her “the look”, the one she would soon become all too familiar with. “Okay, now what’s the problem?”

“Umm … can I be the flower girl when you marry Daddy? Pleeeeeze?”

Cloe knew that had been a fantasy of Jenny’s for quite some time. Now that it was possible, it was an easy wish to grant.

“Yes you can be the flower girl … if and when we get married. Okay?”

Jenny smiled and nodded.

“Now if there are no further objections,” Cloe tried again.

Jenny wiggled in David’s arms. “I think I forgot to say goodbye to somebody.”

“Who?” Cloe pounced.

Jenny stumbled as she searched for an answer. “Rose … yeah … I forgot to say goodbye to Nurse Rose Tyler.”

Cloe was cat quick again. “There’s no Rose on the Royal. You forget, I had to read the stories to set all this up. Rose Tyler belongs to Doctor Who.”

Cloe narrowed her cool blue eyes, “Now Missy, you want to try that one again?”

Jenny Bug looked for a reprieve in David’s eyes and found none. Finally she threw herself on the mercy of the court. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Jenny what’s going on?”’ Cloe noted the crocodile tears forming. “You act like you don’t want to get back to the real world. Quite frankly, I thought you’d be chomping at the bit to see your sisters and to get on actually living the life that up until now you could only dream of. Don’t you want to be our daughter?”

That broke the dam and tears and truth flowed freely. “Yes Mummy … I … I do want it. More than anything else in the whole world I do. But … but … I’m afraid. I’m afraid to close my eyes.”

David held his sobbing daughter while Cloe tried to calm her. “Hey … hey! You know the rule: no drama, no sad tears. I mean it, little girl. No sad tears!”

Jenny Bug tried to comply but fear and tears were having their way. “I don’t wanna cry Mummy, but … but I’m scared … scared to close my eyes … cause … cause you’ll go away.”

Cloe shook her head and sighed as she thought to herself, “Oh great! Separation anxiety … We haven’t even got her back to reality, and already we’re dealing with childhood drama.”

“Jenny,” David pried her loose from his chest. His voice was loving but firm, his words were slow and deliberate. “There is no reason to be scared. Cloe and I are with you, both in this fantasy and in reality. Now … listen to your Mum, close your eyes and when you open them again, I promise we’ll be there with you, and everything will be as we promised.”

Jenny wanted to believe in that promise and the reassuring look her father was giving her, but the fear was deep rooted from a life time of pain. She trembled as looked from parent to parent. “But … what if everything’s a dream? I mean … ummm … not just the Royal but … but everything. What … what if I’m really at home in … in my flat and … and I’m just dreaming. And then … then when I wake up I’ll be all by myself and … and everything will be just like it was before and I’ll be just like I was before and … I … I … can’t go back to that Daddy. I can’t … I just can’t! Please don’t make me close my eyes Mummy, please! I can’t wake up one more time and find everything’s a dream. I just can’t!”

Jenny collapsed into David’s arms. She was spent. She continued to cry softly as she hugged him. Cloe lovingly ran her fingers through Jenny’s curly mop and gently rubbed her back. Her frightened child’s words touched her heart. “I can’t wake up one more time and find everything’s a dream.” From their long discussions after work, Cloe knew that Jenny went to bed every night wishing she would wake up to find she’d magically become a little girl and had the home and family of her dreams. Many times those wishes bled into the dream world and came true for her. Of course, morning would come and she would awake to find cold, hard reality waiting for her and all that she’d been given had slipped away, left in the world of a beautiful dream.

Yes, after having so many dreams that offered her everything she’d ever wanted, it was only logical that she’d be afraid this “dream” would suffer the same fate. It also didn’t help being lost in the illusion of her favourite soap. Poor thing, the lines between reality and illusion were so blurred it was no wonder she didn’t know what to believe, and was afraid to let go of what she currently had her hands around.

Cloe took one of Jenny’s hands in hers. “Bug … feel my hand. It’s warm. It’s real. It’s not an illusion, or a dream or a scene from one of your stories. It’s real, just like the rest of me is real, and David is real and you are real. And … and back in the real world, the real world you are resting in, there is a family and home and a life waiting for you, but you have to close your eyes to get there.”

Jenny sniffled back tears, “But I’m afraid Mummy. I don’t wanna let go.”

Cloe squeezed her hand tighter. “Then don’t let go, baby. You just hold my hand and your Daddy will hold you and we’ll stay right with you until you wake up in the real world.”

“Promise?” She looked from parent to parent. “You won’t let go?”

Cloe smiled and made a V sign just below her nose. “Witches Honor … I promise.”

“I promise too, and remember, a brave knight never breaks a promise.” David’s eyes smiled at her.

Jenny Bug took a last look at the entrance to the Royal and at both of her parents. She wanted to believe them. She had to believe them. She still didn’t want to close her eyes, but the crying had taken so much out of her she was exhausted. It was all she could do to hold them open. Saying a silent prayer that if this was just another dream, she begged G_d, to have mercy and never let her wake up to know it.

She let out a heavy sigh. “Okay Mummy and Daddy, I believe you. I’ll close my eyes and not be too afraid, only just a little. Is that okay?”

“That’s fine Buggles. That’s fine.” Cloe kissed her on the forehead and squeezed her hand.

Jenny’s eyes were growing so heavy she could barely see as she snuggled in David’s arms. Her voice was a sleepy whisper. “Mummy, is it warm in the real world? Illusions are too cold.”

Cloe giggled. “Yes, my Buglette. It’s nice and toasty warm like a cup of hot chocolate.”

“With mashmellows?”

“Yes … with marshmallows, loads of them.”

Maggie smiled as Cloe held her hand and the little one drifted off without another word.

Sister Bridgette stood next to Nurse Stella and watched the young couple carry Jenny out to their Volkswagen Bus. Once the flower powered machine left the parking lot and disappeared, Nurse Stella turned to the Sister.

“She was a sweet one, that lil Jenny Bug, and smart as a whip, too. That lil crack about David making an honest woman out of her mum was priceless, and too cute coming from one so young. I thought the pair of them would faint dead away when she said that.”

Sister Bridgette smiled but a worried look was on her lovely face. “Oh she’s a smart one, alright, but too smart for her own good. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“Why would you say that Sister?”

The good nun clutched her rosary beads, “I can’t really say, Stella. Just a feeling, I suppose, and probably not a thing to it, but just the same I’m going to say a prayer for those three young people and hope the good Lord is watching over them.”

Sister Bridgette closed her eyes and Stella did the same as they sent the three groovy musketeers off to the 21st century with a heartfelt prayer.

Cloe closed the book and set it down on the nightstand next to Jenny. She held her hand lovingly and watched her sleep. Reluctantly she released the hand, but it was for good reason, as she needed two free ones to unfold the extra blanket on the edge of the bed and tuck Sleeping Beauty in. She knew how cold Jenny always was.

The door to the room opened and a tall handsome brave knight sans sideburns, long curly locks and tie died shirt, popped his beautiful face in. “Babe, you about ready? Emily just got here, and all the kids are as ready as they’re going to be.”

Cloe smiled and nodded. She drew strength and joy from the look of love she saw in his eyes. He gave both willingly, and received the same whenever he held Cloe’s face in his eyes. She watched as he pulled back and closed the door behind him.

She lingered there a bit, savoring the memory of his image and then she turned to Jenny. She watched her sleeping peacefully. “Time to get up, Buglette. Your public waits. There could be pizza in this for you.” She tempted her, knowing that was her favourite food bar none.

Cloe looked around the room they’d done their best to set up for her during her stay, and she had to admit it was certainly Bug beautiful. In honor of her love for England, a Union Jack hung proudly above her bed, a bone white tea set sat atop the television, and books from several of her favorite British television shows were stacked neatly by the window. She smiled at Doctor Who, the Avengers and The Royal.

A small stereo sat near the television, and most of Jenny’s favorite music was there. Peter, Paul and Mary, the Carpenters, John Denver, The Seekers, and various groups cultivating the folk music sound of the 60’s were normally providing background music for her to sleep by.

“You’re such a flower child”, Cloe said as she pulled a daisy from a nearby vase and toyed with the idea of putting it in Jenny’s hair.

A baseball cap and replica uniform from the Rockford Peaches of the Women’s Professional League sat on the chair next to Jenny. It had been a gift from David and Cloe. Jenny loved playing sports, especially baseball, and while her arthritic knee prevented her from taking her place in the infield these days, she still liked to dress the part when she attended the games.

Stuffed animals overflowed from the shelf above her bed and flanked her on both sides. Those were for the little girl, the one that peeked out through the adult’s writing and through her eyes whenever she looked at Cloe. It was the little girl who loved to snuggle and color and have her hair put up in pigtails. It was the same little girl who hugged Cloe tightly when they went their separate ways after work on Friday nights.

“Friday nights,” she said the words aloud. Images of a painful March night nearly six months ago came flooding back. It was just another Friday night, the same as so many others. Cloe and Jenny locked up the building. Jenny pulled her bicycle along as she walked Cloe to her car. Cloe opened the door and put her pocketbook in the passengers side and then turned to find what she knew would be waiting: Jenny standing there with arms wide open for the weekend hug and tears threatening in her eyes.

Cloe sighed and gave her usual, “Oh my silly Bug” smile and then opened her arms. Jenny rushed in and hugged her tight. Her voice cracking with emotion and carrying a hint of the little girl within, delivered the one line Cloe knew too well.

“I love you with all my heart.”

Cloe didn’t miss her cue and returned with her time tested response. “I know, Bug. I know.”

Jenny held the hug as long as she could and reluctantly broke it. Cloe smiled at her and then turned to slip behind the wheel. She caught Jenny’s final words as she closed her door and tried to make her escape.

“Tell everyone I love them,” Jenny begged with a hopeful smile, hopeful that somehow in the next ten seconds a bolt of magic would come from the sky and transform her into a little girl and deposit her in her rightful place as Cloe’s daughter and co-pilot, riding shotgun in the passenger seat beside her.

“Have a nice weekend, Bug,” was Cloe’s cheerful but firm reply that signaled it was time to go home now.

Jenny Bug smiled and waved. Cloe returned both before taking out her cell to call David and set plans for dinner tonight.

She was scrolling through the numbers, half listening to the radio and trying to steal warmth from the heater when Jenny rode passed her line of sight. She was a good fifty yards away, wobbling on her bike and waving at Cloe instead of watching where she was going.

The whole thing happened so fast. The semi truck literally seemed to come out of nowhere. Cloe’s eyes went wide and she dropped her cell as she could see that Jenny didn’t see. She wanted to scream, but no words came and even if they had, Jenny never would have heard them.

She waved, hoping some how Jenny would interpret that as a warning of the danger bearing down on her and swerve out of harms way, but the little girl intercepted the message and Jenny smiled brightly as she kept her eyes on Cloe and waved enthusiastically.

That’s when the incredible, unexplainable, unbelievable happened. Jenny had been just a few feet from the grill of the truck speeding toward her. Cloe’s head knew there was nothing she could do to save someone she loved, so her heart took over.

She had reached out as if Jenny was but a few feet away, and tried to pull her to safety. In that split second, Jenny’s dream came true, because in Cloe’s eyes she was just like one of her daughters in danger, and Cloe had the strength to move mountains to bring her little girl to safety.

Cloe’s heart and her love had somehow reached out through her fingers and grabbed hold of Jenny. Amazingly, she could feel weight in her hand, and with all her strength she had tried to pull her friend and her daughter to safety. For a moment, she almost did it. She really felt as though she was lifting Jenny off her bike, or at least part of Jenny, as an image of a familiar little girl flashed before her eyes and seemed to be moving toward her.

Tragically, even though the little girl was a lightweight, she had still been still too heavy for Cloe to carry, and the connection had snapped like a rope stretched beyond capacity. Cloe fell back hard against the leather of her seat and then watched in horror as the green monster devoured her friend and Lady Jane.

Things were kind of blurry after that. She didn’t remember getting out of her car or running to where Jenny’s broken body had landed, but she did remember cradling her in her arms until the ambulance came.

Jenny was unconscious when they got her to hospital, and soon after slipped had into a coma. There was a long list of damage to her body and some of them quite severe. The surgeons had done their best to effect what repairs they could, but they were unable to save her right leg and it had been amputated just above her knee. Now Jenny would have ghost pain from an arthritic knee to contend with among other things.

Trauma to the head was equally severe. Again, the surgeons had done what they could, but there had been massive hemorrhaging, and damage not repairable. If she came out of the coma, it was highly unlikely that the woman and the little girl who left Cloe that Friday evening would ever return. Nonetheless, Cloe stole a page from Jenny’s magic book and hoped for a miracle.

For the last six months she’d come to hospital to see Jenny whenever she could. With no family that would claim her, and no other close friends, Cloe had assumed the role of her primary caregiver. In a very sad way, Jenny had finally gotten her wish. Cloe had become Mummy.

She talked with the doctors about Jenny’s condition. Her friend was in a very deep coma with little chance of ever regaining consciousness. When Cloe asked them if they thought Jenny could possibly be aware of things around her they couldn’t give her a firm answer. There had been cases where people have come out of deep comas and reported that they were aware of people coming and going and could hear conversations. Others had reported being completely unaware or lost in a dream world. Cloe, forever the optimist, held on to the belief that her Bug might be listening in, and she wanted to give her every incentive to rejoin the living.

She directed the redecoration of Jenny’s room into the Bug palace, fit for the little girl she so longed to be. She knew her friend couldn’t see it, but maybe that little girl who peeked out so often wasn’t trapped in the coma … maybe she could see, and if she could, Cloe wanted to have something special for her to find.

Cloe didn’t know if Jenny could hear her, but she had to believe she could, and many of the evenings and weekends she spent with her were very much like the long conversations they’d had so many nights at work. Granted, Cloe had to carry the conversation, but she did it gladly.

Any of the staff stopping in to check on Jenny during Cloe’s visits would find her sitting on Jenny’s bed or in the chair next to her, chatting away about the day to day life of the Gilmore Girls at Chez Nicholas. To most people, the subject matter would have seemed rather boring and mundane, but the beauty was in the ear of the listener, and Cloe knew it was all pure gold to her friend.

Sometimes she would share stories from her girlhood with Jenny. Buglette had always hung on every word of her adventures as a gypsy military brat. Cloe knew that Jenny would sometimes put herself in Cloe’s place just as she often did with the tales of her daughters. Cloe didn’t mind. If it made her friend happy, or eased her suffering, or encouraged her to hang on and fight, she would keep talking until her voice and her stories ran out or Jenny’s time ran out.

The later eventually became the case.

Cloe looked at the calendar on the wall. The date was circled in red: the 8th of August. It had been six months since the accident, and in accordance with the terms of Jenny’s living will, no life sustaining measures were to be continued after that time. The doctors had assured Cloe, that Jenny would slip away quickly once the tubes and lines were removed.

Jenny’s friends who had become her family had stopped by to pay their final respects over the last few days. Now David, his daughters and Cloe’s daughters waited outside for the final goodbye.

Cloe looked down at her friend and spirit daughter and hoped that she hadn’t suffered, that she had been aware of those around her over the last six months and the love they felt for her. She didn’t want to believe that Jenny had been lost in a nightmare for the last half year. She’d been living in a forty year long nightmare before the accident had occurred. She held hope that if Jenny had been living in a fantasy world, it was one where her dream finally came true.

Cloe looked at the book she’d just finished reading to Jenny. It was one from her series on her favorite British soap called The Royal. Cloe had selected this particular tale when she’d read the jacket and discovered it was about a little girl hurt when she was nearly hit by a milk truck. Since the series had been set in the 60’s, her parents were groovy flower children. The story had caught Cloe’s attention, but the picture on the cover sealed the deal. A little girl had a flower in her curly strawberry blond hair. Big blue eyes smiled and picked up the color from her rainbow summer dress. Her father was on the left. He was tall and had long red curls, sideburns, and beads dangling down on his tied dye shirt. Her mother was on her right. She had long wavy blond hair held by a headband. Her skin was fair and her eyes sparkled through groovy looking shades. She was wearing one of those flowing mother of earth dresses that were so popular during that time.

The cover had brought a smile to Cloe’s face the moment she saw it. She knew that Jenny would immediately put herself in the place of the little girl, and cast Cloe and David as her groovy parents. Cloe had shared that with David when she first started to read the book aloud. David growled a little and said that he never would have wore his hair like that or dressed that way, but Cloe could picture it and the thought always made her giggle.

Cloe had just finished the last chapter before David let her know it was time. She was so glad the fantasy tale had a happy ending. Perhaps memories of that would help get both her and Jenny through this day in the real world that was destined not to have one.

Cloe eyed the daises and then placed one in Jenny’s hair. Gently she kissed her forehead and then adjusted the blanket to cover Jenny’s cold hands. She shook her head and wondered why they had to keep hospital rooms so damn cold.

All was quiet now save for the incessant beeping of the machine that monitored Jenny’s condition and kept her alive. Soon there would be total silence.

Cloe felt tears welling in her eyes and then she looked down at the book on the nightstand. Its title was words she’d often said to Jenny before during those sad goodbyes. Now it was time for Mummy to take a dose of her own medicine.

“No Sad Tears,” was the title and the words that Cloe tried to take to heart.

She wiped away her tears and summoned her best brave smile.

“Goodbye my Buglette.” She said softly and lovingly. She held her gaze for a few moments and then added the words Jenny always loved to hear.

“And yes, I love you too.”

Cloe turned and headed to the door. It was time to bring the family in.

HUGS

Thanks to Holly H Hart for editing